Page 21 of Before the Bond
“For what it’s worth,” he continued, “the people in this house don’t let anyone in. You were the right choice.”
I looked at him. He was watching the fire.
“How?” I asked. “You didn’t know me.”
Caleb considered the question. “Sometimes you just know.”
I wanted to press it. I also found, oddly, that I didn’t — or couldn’t, quite. Something in the directness of what he’d said made pushing at it feel like pressing on something I didn’t want to name.
I thought about what I’d said to Donovan. About Jake trusting me. And then I thought about the seven years I’d spent in other people’s houses, other people’s crises, packing up before anything could take root. Never staying long enough for a place to become something I’d miss.
“I understand, I guess,” I said. “Not wanting to let anyone in, that is.”
I looked toward the window, toward the dark that pressed up against the glass the way dark does in places far from everything else. “I’ve spent a long time learning not to let things mean anything.”
Caleb didn’t fill the silence. Instead, he let it settle between us.
The fire settled lower. Neither of us moved to add wood. I went back to my charts and he went back to his book. We stayed like that for another hour without speaking — two people in the same warm room by mutual, unspoken agreement.
Chapter 5
Olivia
Acouple of days passed, and the estate felt a lot more familiar.
Not entirely. There were still locked doors, Jake’s condition still unclear, and a concerning number of times where people would go quiet when I entered a room.
But somewhere between learning which cabinet held the extra linens and discovering that Jake took his tea with an amount of sugar that bordered on criminal, I found ways to make things work.
Today helped.
The afternoon was warmer than the previous few, and you could actually see sunlight.
“I think the weather could be good for you,” I told him. “We’ll just be careful about how far we walk.”
“You do realize I have two working legs, right?” Jake joked.
“Yes, but Ialsoknow your bone pain springs up around the afternoon.”
“Alright, alright.”
The garden behind the estate was quieter than the rest of the property.
I spotted broken fountains, mist-worn wooden benches, and some stray broken stone paths.
The flowers stopped it from feeling too lonesome, however. Rhododendrons, bleeding hearts, lupines along the edges. In the sunlight and light breeze, they swayed gently.
I took it in.
“Tomas really knows what he’s doing,” I said.
“It’s a pity the fog’s always covering it,” Jake replied.
We sat by a couple of wicker chairs as Jake started talking more about the estate.
“The original estate map labels this as the ‘formal garden’,” he said, making the air quotes with clear personal amusement. “Donovan won’t fix most of it. He says it would disturb the structural integrity of the stonework.”
“And the actual reason?” I asked.
